Care centre is to ease A&E burden

A new £1.6m health care centre has been opened at the Leicester Royal Infirmary in a bid to ease pressure on accident and emergency services.

The Urgent Care Centre aims to treat patients for problems for which they would normally see their GP and will be opened at weekends and evenings.

The centre has been funded by Leicester City Primary Care Trust and is expected to treat about 48,000 patients a year.

It is hoped the service will reduce wait times at accident and emergency.

'Improving care'

Paul Miller, the PCT's managing director of community health services, said people should treat accident and emergency as a last resort.

"This is about improving care for the people of Leicester. This is something that the PCT is committed to.

"It's a welcome development which is probably long overdue.

"We're responding to the need to improve the quality of our facilities but also to recognise that members of the public access services in different ways."

Patients can walk into the centre or be referred by calling the out-of-hours GP service.

The PCT aims to expand the facility during daytimes in the week from 1 October.